The Fire's In Their Eyes And Their Words Are Really Clear

So We ( I use that term loosely) did our annual easter egg hunt again this year.  I was not too much help since I just had knee surgery but I still collected eggs and then had them shuttled over to Lisa.
I am always glad we started this 5 years ago but quite often people ruin it for us every single year.  If it weren't for the awesome people who are actually appreciative we probably would have stopped doing it on year two.
People are really embarrassing sometimes in how they act at such events.
We have asked and pleaded EVERY year that parents and adults DO NOT help their kids find the gold and silver egg but every year you have a parent either find it for their kid or shoved their tiny little kids face into the egg until they see it which usually ends in said child crying.    It's like they think they will be out something if their kid doesn't win a prize.  Also parents that bring 12 eggs per child to my house yet take 40 from the hunt.  If you are going to let your kid go crazy, then bring extra eggs.  We all provide many many extra eggs so all the kids get 12 but it seems those of us that do extra eggs are the ones that never let our kids take a ton.   Weird I know.

So heres how things go.  I send out a pre pre announcement email reminding all neighborhood and family and friends that the hunt is coming up and we will be putting fliers out soon and usually attach last years flier for those who are new and don't have a clue what I am talking about.  Aimee makes a new flier, usually multiple times until Lisa and I stop being anal about what goes on it.  Lisa or myself pay to have 250-300 printed.   I usually buy more expensive colored bright paper to you know, be in the easter spirit.  We buy rubber bands and staple a rubber band to 300 pieces of paper.  Our children and ourselves walk door to door attaching them to the neighborhood so no one is excluded (we have made it clear this is NOT a church event).    I buy a gold and silver prize per age group (usually there are 5 groups).  I like to buy fun prizes and have spent about 15 bucks per group.   I have never minded spending time or money doing things that I feel like gives a better sense of community to a neighborhood and helps you get to know each other.   This year I didn't buy the prizes and was going to leave out the gold and silver egg because of previous frustrations w/parents cheating and for other reasons.   People found out about that and decided to come up w/the prizes so they collected those and took them to Lisa who organized all that along w/single baggying all the eggs that come not in baggies (even though the flier asks them to be bagged for inclement weather).   Did I mention we buy the bags?   Then Lisa buys all the paper products because we do a continental pot luck breakfast.   We usually supply a few of the drinks and Aimee gets donuts or something donated or one of us brings a lot more than our share to make sure there is enough.   It is also specified on the flier to bring a breakfast item to share.   I bought different colored sprinkler flags a few years ago to separate the areas and Lisa, Myself, Aimee and usually a few other awesome neighbors get up early Saturday and come help us hide the 800-1000 eggs.

Then what happens:   The hunt starts promptly at 9 am SHARP (also on the flier)
By 9:15 every egg is found all the kids return the gold and silver eggs in return for a prize and the food gets wolfed down and everyone disappears.   With many, keep in mind that find Lisa and Myself to thank us.   We don't do it for the thanks but getting appreciated is sure a nice feeling and actually is the only thing that has kept us from continuing this tradition after all the complaints we get.

By the evening of that day we each receive a myriad of complaints such as:
The eggs have jelly beans in them and thats cheap (Jelly beans are easter candy and no candy has ever in the history of time ever been infused w/poison to kill a child on Halloween or Easter, that's an urban legend)
We want individually wrapped candy in the eggs (you know where Target is)
My kid didn't get 12 eggs (each child is supposed to get at least 12 eggs but some parents let their kid gather 30 or 40 since they have zero regard for others)
You started the hunt before we got there (9 sharp means 9 sharp, learn to be on time)
The chocolate was melted  (I'm sorry, we forgot to put each egg on ice)
9 oclock is so early for a Saturday (grow up)
It's cold (really?)
I didn't know about it (no comment)
We are going to be out of town (like they expect us to move it)
I didn't know when it was going to be (it's always the day before Easter at 9)
We got an empty egg (oh well, use it to teach your kids about the empty tomb, it wasn't a personal attack on your kid)
There was halloween candy in one of our eggs (What would you like me to do about that?)
Parents helped their kid find the egg and thats not fair (Some parents suck, end of story)
Next year you should do this or this or that or the other. (you wanna be in charge?)
Advice such as "I would do this if I were in charge"(Again, you can be in charge, oh wait, if you were in charge there wouldn't be one right?)
and many many many more which Lisa & Aimee can add to the comments if it makes them feel better.

I did a big swear word on Saturday and then I felt better.  Sorry about that Aimee (:
Aimee thinks we should fire ourselves
Nellie gave me good ideas to assign people to be in charge based on complaining
Our kids love this tradition and many of the kind appreciative neighbors do too so alas we have a year to get over it and forget about the negative before we do it again.   We are masochists I suppose.

It's interesting the things people feel they have a right to complain about.    They have zero to do with something yet they are the resident expert on how it should be done.    And seriously people,  I cannot freaking control every aspect of time/space/weather/peoples intelligence/traffic and whatever in the hell else you think I want to hear your complaints about.
Maybe next year we will show the scene in Bambi about keeping your mouth shut if your a jerk or a whiner.  I think it goes something like that anyway.

So the moral of all this for me is that I just hate how the complainers make me take inventory of how much time/money/effort/thought I have put into something in defense of myself because I DO NOT do this for praise, attention, recognition or any of the like yet my basic human instinct is to go there when I feel threatened to defend myself from something that should NEVER need defending.

In the end the goal is to have an event that the KIDS remember and enjoy and not have to deal w/the stupid fitness center chaos. I think we are successful at that so overall I am happy and satisfied w/our measly half assed effort. (:     We are just a few people trying to do something good.

B & E

Chev

Logan Sam and the Lingwalls

Neve w/her best buddy Logan

HAPPY DAY BEFORE EASTER EVERYONE!!!